8: First day at Port - [World #05]
"Do we have lasers? Yes? Only, they're like, usually in really big cannons and stuff. Not small enough that someone could just sneak up behind me and pull the trigger, but I guess that's what happened to me. I just looked down and saw a load of purple light, and the last thing I remember are the beat up faces of those thugs in front of me. They weren't all that strong, really, -apart from this one girl-, but I didn't really wanna kill 'em or anything... at least not at first." Amber huffed, gazing forlornly over the edge of the CCT tower at the backdrop of Vale's luminous skyline. "Maybe I shouldn't have held back..."
"Wait a minute- they just came out of nowhere and tried to kill you? Don't you have any idea why they'd do something like that?" Ichigo frowned.
"Well... um... I'm not sure if I should tell you, but I guess, there wouldn't be a point in hiding it, would there? Besides, they've really pissed me off." Amber fidgeted on the spot for a few moments, deciding on how to word it. "I'm... a maiden, apparently."
Ichigo raised an eyebrow. "Okay...? Don't worry, you didn't need to tell me, you don't look that old." he paused, "Unless you mean the other way, but I don't really see how-"
"Not like that!" Amber shrieked, "I mean like in the old fairy tale!" she collected herself, "Don't you know what those are?"
"What, like Rapunzel? Or the one with the money laundering goblin? Uh, Rumpelstiltskin, wasn't it?" Ichigo recollected, with a hand on his chin. The last person who'd read him one was his mother, and that was... a long time ago. Too long.
"Money laundering-what? What kind of- never mind." Amber shook her head vigorously. "Look, I guess you've never heard the story of the four maidens, the really ancient one where four women go to meet an old wizard who lives in a cottage? Must be because of where you're from. He gave them magical elemental powers, and stuff, because they were so nice to him. Must be because you're from a different dimension."
Ichigo considered, his eyes closed in thought. He opened his heterochromatic orbs and rounded on Amber with his conclusion. "That makes no sense."
"What? The wizard part or the elemental magic part?" the maiden queried.
"Wizard powers? Nah, that's not the hard-to-believe part. You do realise how I got up here, right?" Ichigo clarified, "Why the hell would four women just randomly turn up at some old man's house like that?"
"Um... they were nice people, maybe?" Amber shrugged.
"And they just got given powers, just like that?" This reminded him somewhat of Yhwach... and this even had a story that was passed down through the ages, like that one Quincy song. But then again, this lady didn't feel like a Quincy, at all... Regardless, it left a bad taste in his mouth, even if there clearly hadn't been an equivalent of the Auswählen here, given Amber's presence.
"Oh no, they gave him food, and visited him regularly, things like that." she added.
"Did they stay with him for a while?" Ichigo cast a scant glance down through the hole in the centre of the spire, catching a glimpse of the cog-covered glass ceiling to Ozpin's office.
"Yeah, they spent several nights there." An idea was sparked in Amber's mind. "Say... are you implying that the reason they showed up out of nowhere at some old hermit's cottage was because they were hired-"
"Get your head out of the gutter!" Ichigo exclaimed. "No, that wasn't what I was thinking at all!" He recomposed himself, drawing a conclusion together from her question. "...So if you're asking stuff like this... you're not one of the originals?" he hazarded.
"Of course not, I'm not thousands of years old! I just woke up really cold for some reason back in the middle of last Summer. At first I always felt a wind chill, even on a hot day, but then I slowly started to control it. After a while, I realised that it was actual air I was moving, and soon after that, I could do it with not just wind, but also fire, ice and stone." She took on a very-satisfied-with-herself grin.
"I'm a huntress, so I started using it on my missions obviously. Turns out, they all became stupidly easy to complete, and I was bumped up to six figures in weeks! I could buy the horse I've always wanted! I even got a down payment on some prime real estate!" She thrust a thumb at her chest proudly, "I could'a retired in my twenties! You know how crazy that is?" Ichigo rolled his eyes, ignoring the stab of envy in the depths of his heart.
"But then..." she drooped, and spoke darkly. "A creepy red-eyed crow started following me around, no matter how much I tried to scare it away! One day, I had enough, and tried to shoot it, but then it just straight up transformed into some random guy! He got really mad and told me that I had to meet the wizard himself, Headmaster Ozpin at Beacon Academy, and that I was a maiden, of the genuine legendary disposition, y'see." Her tone grew sharp. "I told him to shove it, but then a few days later he came back with the message that although Ozpin was prepared to just let me be, other members of whatever the 'inner circle' is weren't inclined to be so lenient. If I didn't come along to allow them to keep access to a 'relic', they were gonna get the local bank to freeze my account! He even said it was for my own safety- can you imagine...? They were somehow onto my retirement plans, so I had no choice but to go."
Ichigo just stared blankly at her. "From the sounds of it, it just looks like they only caught on because you got so greedy and made it too obvious something was up."
Amber kissed her teeth at him. "Tch. Oh please. Not as if I even knew someone was looking for me. As if you wouldn't try and rig the system too."
"Hey!" Ichigo felt affronted, "I don't even get paid for what I do, and I guard a whole town!"
Although, he really should have been paid for it technically. Rukia had told him at one point that any notorious enough hollow actually earned a bounty on its head; it was how she paid Urahara for his wares back when she first got stuck in Karakura Town. He himself held a vague idea of trying to cash his substitute job in with the Gotei 13, but he'd purified so many hollows at this point he'd never remember them all off the top of his head. They were such small fry to him in general that he wouldn't even be able to tell which ones had a bounty, anyway. Not to mention Central 46 would probably make up some nonsense on the spot about how his deputy status meant that he wasn't eligible for payment. Or even worse, they'd draft up some shady contract with an agreement to something heinous like becoming the next Soul King or Mayuri's test subject in the small print. Right now, given the state of the Seireitei, he knew they needed all the cash they had on hand, anyway.
"Whatever, let me finish. So you know... back when I was in Beacon, as a student, Ozpin and I never really got along. He gave me detentions, like, all the time. And here he was, tryin' to do the same to me now and boss me around as a full-grown adult. I wasn't having it, even if he was apparently somehow also a wizard, so I took the long way round, avoiding bullhead ports and all that, just to spite him. Of course, I took my horse with me, because I wanted to see Ozpin's dumb face when it went to the bathroom all over his school grounds, hehe..." she snickered darkly. "I could travel through the wilderness just fine, because I was more than strong enough to deal with any grimm by that point. And then... I ran into a little girl, crying alone in the middle of the road." She looked away as she continued, her eyes reflecting the harsh blue glow of the tower's lights. "I have no idea what she was doing there in the middle of nowhere, nor where she went."
Ichigo winced. He could tell what was coming next. It was reminiscent of how he'd fallen for the trick of that fake girl by the riverside, over nine years ago. "She was bait, wasn't she? An illusion?"
"You think so? She seemed plenty real to me. I went to check on her, obviously, and give her some of my lunch. I would've brought her along back to the closest town, but then when I reached out to her, I got shot in the back. I guess you're right, she must've been an illusion, because then these three strangers just popped up out of thin air, and started attacking me. Their faces and hair, too, the features kept changing. As I said, they really weren't all that strong, but then somehow I just got taken out from the back by a frickin' laser beam. The worst part is that I don't even know why or how it happened..."
"Oh great... looks like things here are way more complicated than just a bunch of schools for hunting monsters." Ichigo sighed, "Good thing I'm used to this kinda stuff. It wouldn't be the first time I've seen a crazy conspiracy."
Amber blinked at him. "What are you, anyway? You called yourself a shinigami, and said you're straight up from another dimension. How can you even see me?"
Ichigo leaned back against the stone arch of the spire. "Don't freak out, but I'm a Soul Reaper."
"A reaper?" Amber stiffened. "For real?"
"Yep. Don't worry, I'm not gonna take your soul or anything. Although, if I was to do it to you, I wonder if it'd just send you straight to your afterlife here..." Ichigo wondered, watching the glimmering azure orbs levitating in the hollow chamber of the tower.
"You can just send people to heaven?" she uttered in awe.
"Um, maybe? Different dimension, remember. I hope this place has the heaven and hell system, the one back home is more like the Buddhist cycle. It's not... terrible, but it could be a lot better." Ichigo elaborated.
"Buddhist? Wait, so you know like, angels and stuff?" Amber ventured.
"Um... I'm not sure if I'd want to disappoint you. Maybe they have them in the Soul Society's Western Branch..." Ichigo held up his hands deflectingly. "You seem to be taking this pretty well. The last ghost I met started balling her eyes out at me when I told her."
"Well yeah, you haven't done anything in the last hour, so I don't see why I'd be scared. I'm not even dead. -I'm not.- Besides, the worst you could do is send me to heaven." She halted, as her eyebrows shot up. "I do deserve to go to heaven, right?"
Ichigo's shoulders hiked up in a mild shrug. "You should be just fine. You haven't killed anyone, right? Even if you have, getting sent to hell is pretty hard. I killed a guy who had apparently straight up murdered multiple other Soul Reapers, and I still met him just fine in the Soul Society." Although, that might've had something to do with Ginjō actually having a point to his anger, after all...
"Reapers can die? How does that work? Does one of your colleagues just come along, and-" she drew her thumb across her throat, "that?"
"Nah, death doesn't work like that. It's not like those stories or TV shows. It just... happens. If you're not dead yourself, could you show me that vault where you said they're keeping your body? You said that you saw it. There's a chance I might be able do something. A small chance, as long as your body isn't too hurt." Ichigo suggested hopefully. In truth, he had no idea if he could, but he couldn't just ignore this.
"Really? Gods... thank you," Amber twiddled her fingertips together embarrassedly. "But erm, I don't really know where they're keeping me, specifically. I only saw myself the once, right after I woke up a month ago, and might've freaked out... a little, and flown through the roof until I saw sunlight. It's gonna take a while. It was probably a mile underground, in a random room that looked the same to all the other random rooms."
"That's alright," Ichigo reassured, "Just follow your chain of fate back to your body. The fact that it's still attached means that you're still alive."
"It's attached to my body..." she looked down and grasped the metallic chain, clinking together the cool links in her palm, before dropping it. The chance she now had in front of her gave her a wary sliver of hope she hadn't felt in a month. "Okay then! I'll get started right away!" Amber proclaimed with a new resolve, before striding towards the edge of the tower. The radiant blue light set in the edge beneath her lit her face as she smiled at him over her shoulder, far brighter than the twinkling nocturnal skyline of Vale behind her. "Thanks for everything, Ichigo! See you in a couple days!"
And with that, she leapt forwards and dived over the side.
"See ya..." Ichigo muttered back, slowly stepping out towards the CCT's precipice. He looked up to the stellar-studded sky, the stars slightly more sparse than what he had seen over the countryside from all the city's ambient lights below. And yet, it was still far more visible than any sky over Karakura Town, what with the complete lack of any exhaust fumes, oddly enough. With the muted whoosh of a shunpo, he was gone.
So baby
Now you feel like Number One~
Shining bright for everyone
Living out your fantasy, the
Brightest star for all to see!
Ichigo's eyes shot open to the alarm on his phone. He'd set it for half-past-seven, given the glossy, printed timetable he'd found on his bed when he arrived at his given room the night before. Karin had told him once to make sure not to play his 'cheesy' music around her, so naturally he'd made sure to set a playlist as his loud alarm on purpose. It was a big brother's job to make sure his little siblings' musical tastes were properly refined, wasn't it? Not that he got much of a chance to ever need it, what with the way their dad would wake him up.
Ichigo kicked off the deep red covers, and sat up alertly in his corporeal body. His father hadn't really 'trained' him to wake up early, it was more in the sense that he would sleep as long as he could, but the moment he was woken up, he was completely awake. That was probably the point, now that he thought about it, as he fiddled with his smartphone's blue fabric case. Damn, the battery's almost dead- but he had a vague idea of how to charge it. Maybe one of the people here could help? Idly, he scanned over the room he was staying in.
The flooring- real wood, not linoleum, matched the single bed he'd slept in, pushed up against the dark wooden panelling just under the white-patterned cream wallpaper. Probably a perk of being an actual castle, judging from the carved furnishings and the arched double casement window letting the morning sun's warm rays in through the drawn back rose-red blinds. As he got up, routinely making his bed out of habit, and made his way to the en-suite bathroom, Ichigo mulled over what he'd heard the night before.
He wouldn't be able to rely on Ozpin, at least not completely. He probably wouldn't exactly be in a rush to get this relic thing and help get him back to his home dimension; that much was clear. The guy clearly wanted to try and see what he could get out of Ichigo to help his own cause, before anything else. He probably planned to try and make him get comfortable here, to the point that he wouldn't want to leave. Fat chance.
After that following conversation with Amber, Ichigo's impression regarding the Headteacher had spiked into outright suspicion. He'd almost charged right back to Ozpin to demand answers on the spot, and a few years ago he might just have done that, but he knew he'd need to hear the state of Amber herself, first. There had to be a reason she was kept down there after a mortal injury, and he'd need to know where she was exactly, first. The problem was, that he didn't know any healing kaidō, and after a month in intensive care, what more could he possibly do himself, anyway? He couldn't stand by and not even try, but the issue was that he realistically couldn't try anything, here.
Reaching for the provided toothpaste, he tore open the packaging for the brand-new toothbrush left on the sink, and rinsed it before he began to brush. Looking up into the round mirror on the soft-blue checker-tiled wall, he found the reflection of his weary amber-brown orbs. It wouldn't be the first time he'd have to tell someone that they were dead, but he'd never been able to completely numb out the pang in his heart when he saw their shattered face. When it came to coma-ejected souls, if the vessel was healthy, then the usual procedure was to plant the soul back into the body and flush out their memories as a disembodied spirit. If the vessel was healthy, that is. The fact of the matter was that usually the soul only got ejected when things were really bad, health-wise. And for her body to be in that state for a month... a gigai might have worked, but he didn't have any. Not as if he could just haul those things around. Ichigo leaned over the sink, and spat out the toothpaste in it.
He couldn't fret over that for now. If there was a chance, he would take it. If not... then he'd have to be the one to tell Amber himself. After that, he had time. Weeks, as it was becoming more and more apparent. That... was troubling. He'd be missing the entire cleanup of the war, and everyone would probably be left wondering if he was one of the casualties. And it wasn't as if he could just ignore the existence of squads of assassins targeting people. He would've suspected Ozpin, but he and whatever 'circle' he was part of had apparently warned Amber for her own safety and wanted her back in Beacon under their watch, so it couldn't have been them. All because she woke up as a maiden... which could apparently just happen to someone. Was it limited to just four women, or could there be more? If the maidens had changed, then was Ozpin just a wizard, or the wizard? This would need further thought. Could Summer know more about this?
Drying off his face after washing it, Ichigo distractedly rubbed his thumb over the emblem of Beacon academy embroidered in the white towel he'd grabbed. At least it was shaping up to be an interesting stay here.
- –—{}—– -
Following the directions on the map, Ichigo arrived at his first, and preferably last grimm studies lesson. It seemed that they'd set him first-year classes, since they wouldn't require much prior knowledge. All subjects, that is, except for combat. That was marked as a second-year lesson. Curiously enough, he had his one required lesson in it before his 'test' was supposed to take place. That must not have been on the timetable altogether. The school had seen it fit to give him the entire timetable, even knowing that he was only meant to attend the very first ones in each subject, as per his deal with the Headteacher. It was probably a subtle nudge to get him to try and become an actual student. Yeah, right. Although, he would admit that he was kind of interested in finding more about the creatures of grimm, given how downright strange they were, even by his standards.
Ichigo was now sporting the academy's uniform. Most of it, anyway. He was wearing a black blazer, matching his dark trousers with a metallic belt buckle, over a white untucked shirt. A striped red tie was loosely tied around his collar, of which the top button had been left undone, and he wore lack leather dress shoes. He'd neglected the blue v-necked jumper that most of the other boys in the room were wearing, since he was only wearing the uniform because he'd rather not walk around in his ragged hoodie.
Beacon must've been absolutely loaded, to be able to provide brand-new shoes and uniforms for someone who wasn't even a real student. They'd even had a range of sizes in the provided cupboard in his room, so he'd been able to find a perfect fit. He was probably going to keep the belt they'd given; it felt pretty expensive. Swinging open the brass handle, Ichigo leaned in the doorway as he surveyed the room.
It was a lecture room, with raised concentric semicircles of seats facing the blue holographic board below them. It was thrice the size of a normal classroom, but he'd never been in a lecture hall before, so Ichigo couldn't really judge as to whether it was bigger or smaller than a usual one at a university.
From the ceiling, hung a few modern-looking lights made out of tube-shaped bulbs joined together in a geometric pattern. The seats and desks were all fashioned out of polished wood, with neon-blue lights set into a silvery stairway between the seating down the middle. There was a grey closet door to the right of the board. On the white-painted walls were some photographs hung up in intricately carved frames, as well as posters and charts depicting diagrams of what must have been various species of grimm. There were even a few bestial masks on the walls, but Ichigo couldn't be certain whether they were real or not, given how they decayed near-instantaneously upon death, like most hollows did.
"Ah-ha! Our prospective guest! I've heard many a detail about you from our dear Headmaster!" the old, chubby man standing on the very spacious stage in front of the board announced pompously. He had a thick, walrus-like moustache that was as grey-white as his hair, combed back to either side of his head. He wore a buttoned-up double-breasted burgundy suit, with gold piping. It matched his red ascot, tied under the collar of his concealed white shirt. On his feet, were olive cavalry boots. "You're right on time, my boy. Take a seat." He gestured flamboyantly at the curved rows of desks.
They were packed to the brim with teams of students, and any space was scant at best. He began walking up the steps searchingly to try and find a seat, when a familiar voice grabbed his attention with its sweet lilt.
"Hey! Ichigo! Over here!" Ruby hollered, waving him over.
Ichigo took the seat beside her. She shuffled over, pushing up against Weiss, Ren and finally Nora, who leaned over her desk and greeted him happily, "Hi! It's you, the flat-Remnanter! Your horn's back to just the left one!"
She, Weiss and Ruby were all garbed in the female uniform. Unlike the male uniform's pitch-black, the women wore very dark cherry-red gold-lined blazers over pleated shirts and tan jumpers with a red bow-ribbon instead of a tie. Underneath which they donned a plaid red skirt, over stockings.
"Nora!" Ren interjected, "he said it was rude to point out!"
Ichigo brushed off the duo's eccentric greeting. "Mornin'. Yeah, my horn does that."
Weiss gave him a small acknowledging nod. He returned it.
"I thought Jaune told us you were meant to leave Beacon, Ichigo?" Ren inquired evenly.
"I am, but just not right now. Turns out I might be here for a while. A few weeks, at least. I've got to go to the first class in each subject, for now." Ichigo sighed, resting his horned head on his left palm boredly, the arm propped up on his desk. He didn't even have any school supplies- even if he did wish to take notes, what would he even do?
"So you're staying? That's great!" Ruby cheered, then frowned awkwardly, "but, um, I hope you get home soon."
Ichigo gave her a small smile. "Thanks." His gaze switched to the front of the room as the teacher began his lesson.
"Monsters! Demons... Prowlers of the night! Yes, the creatures of Grimm have many names, but I, Professor Port, merely refer to them as prey! Ha-ha!" the cavalier man began. Ichigo sat up, taken aback slightly at the tirade. Well, it wouldn't be the first eccentric teacher on this level he'd encountered in his life, but it would be the first in a not-so-supernatural classroom environment.
"And you shall too, upon graduating from this prestigious academy! Now, as I was saying: Vale, as well as the other three kingdoms, are safe havens in an otherwise treacherous world! Our planet is absolutely teeming with creatures that would love nothing more than to tear you to pieces! And that's where we come in. Huntsmen! Huntresses..." the teacher gave a zealous, showy wink across the room, towards some girl Ichigo couldn't see sat behind him. He didn't need to see it was a girl to know, from the feminine groan that followed. Wow... was this guy for real? On the first day too, that had to be played up ironically, and on purpose... or he was just retardedly ballsy.
"Yes, us. The scourge of the soulless creatures of grimm. Individuals who have sworn to protect those who cannot protect themselves! From what, you ask? Why, the very world!" he proclaimed grandly. What?
Ichigo clung onto one word. He was so caught up, that he ignored the lone boy across the room rising from his seat in a hurrah. He paid no attention to the rest of the teacher's rambling, focusing on the echoing denomination in his mind. Soulless. Soulless. Grimm were soulless. But that was... impossible, wasn't it? All matter in existence had a spiritual base. But, then again, he couldn't sense them at all. It would explain so much. They weren't transcendent, obviously; they just simply lacked any reiryoku whatsoever. And that would be because... He soon raised his hand- an action he would seldom do even in regular school.
"...Despite smelling of cabbages, my grandfather was a wise man. 'Peter', he told me- yes, Ichigo Kurosaki?" the showy man rounded on him.
"You said it earlier. Are grimm actually soulless? Do they really not have a soul at all?" Ichigo projected his voice across the class.
"Why yes, I do believe so. That is, after all, common knowledge, that grimm are the only living creatures of all the Brother's creations, to utterly lack a soul." Professor Port leaned back, motioning with an oddly-bent stick at an image of a skull-masked jet-black snake on the holo-board. "Did you think I was being figurative? I would imagine you can't have passed through combat school without picking up on that little tidbit."
"Right, thanks." Ichigo rubbed at the side of his neck. "But how does that even work? They can't really be alive, can they? I've never heard of anything like it. Literally everything else has a soul." -And he did mean everything, even including inanimate objects, according to Xcution. "How could something that runs around and makes noises and everything not have one?"
"I will admit, that is a mystery beyond the scope of modern science. Every self-aware entity has a soul. Even animals can awaken aura, but never grimm. They exist outside the macrocosm of conventional life. But I can see you have the spark of a grimmologist within you, my boy. Perhaps you could be the one to find that answer, eh?" Port gave him an encouraging, broad, moustached grin. It was a very 'teacher's-handbook'-esque line, the kind he hadn't heard since primary school. At least the old man's heart was clearly in his work.
"I'll... think about it." Ichigo muttered, half-politely, half-dismissively as he turned away slightly.
So grimm genuinely didn't have souls, and apparently not even the professor of a premier institution dedicated to hunting the things could answer how that could be. He'd have to look into... no, he didn't have to look into this, he didn't have to do anything here -but it did feel very weird. He could chalk it up to just alien things on an alien planet in an alien dimension, but something fundamental about it just felt... off. His thoughts were cut off by Ruby nudging him in the side with her elbow. Geh, did she think he was daydreaming? Well, at least she was taking her leadership role seriously- wait, never mind.
She was proudly showing off her crude cartoonish ball-with-limbs caricature of the teacher drawn in pencil with stink lines emanating from him, labelled "Professor Poop" underneath. She blew a quick raspberry, to Nora's onset of giggles.
Ichigo snorted a little, but didn't find it as funny; the internet had fried his teenage sense of humour too badly. Although it did give off the same vibe as a shitpost to him, sort of. Still, he found it a bit deep, more than anything else. Wasn't this Port's first lesson with them? He hadn't even told anyone off or anything, yet. He could've understood it, then; he'd acted way worse himself when teachers had tried to catch him out on occasion. That was when the they'd tried to mess with him, though. Professor Port seemed like an alright guy so far. Then again, it probably wasn't meant to mean anything. Of all things, Ichigo wasn't one to take a moral high ground over something as minor as this. In his eyes, stuff like this just came with the job, for teachers. Ruby was just messing around, although he could tell she was trodding all over Weiss's nerves in the process.
"...A true Huntsman must be dependable!" Port continued. The albino girl had been growing progressively more and more agitated over the course of the lesson, to the point that she was positively fuming with her partner sat next to her.
"A true Huntsman must be strategic, well-educated, and wise!" Ruby, meanwhile, was not-so-subtly picking her nose inattentively, as Weiss's countenanced broiled with steaming fury. He watched Ruby try and flick it off of her finger. Ew. Ichigo recoiled. That better not fly anywhere near me.
"So, who among you believes themselves to be the embodiment of these traits?" Port asked concludingly, searching the roomful of huntsmen-in-training.
"I do, sir!" Weiss called out, stretching her right hand out above her head and spreading the fingers wide like a five-pointed star. It was the first time she'd spoken all morning, Ichigo noticed. She hadn't even said hello, only nodding to greet him. Something must've been eating at her; it was easy to tell, but he wouldn't bring it up. He wasn't the type to pry, and whatever it was would be her teammates' job to fix, if anyone else but herself.
"Well, then, let's find out!" Port announced before marching to the side of the board and entering the supply closet that was to the right of the huge stage. A few seconds later, he returned, dragging with him a cube with an opaque cream cloth draped over it. From the way he was holding it, and the scratching sounds coming from the cube as he set it in front of the holo-board, it was a cage, with something alive inside it. A grimm. In a classroom? That was just asking for property damage. Though, there was plenty of space at the front. If this was a regular thing, the size of the stage made sense now. "Step forward, and face your opponent!"
Weiss baulked. "In my uniform? What about a weapon, sir?"
Professor Port chuckled, "Oh, right. I may have been a touch overzealous, there. Run down to your locker, and get ready. Make it snappy, if you may."
Weiss nodded, and scampered off, pushing past Ruby and Ichigo to exit the lecture room. Whilst the room was waiting, Ichigo tried to sense whatever was inside the cage, making all the scratching and snuffling noises. He tried looking for reiryoku, and reiatsu; any shred of spiritual pressure at all. But it was all for naught- it was as if there wasn't anything in the cage, at all.
Despite the very clear presence the creature held in reality it, ironically enough, was pretty much a reverse ghost to his spiritual senses. Was that a thing? An anti-spirit? It was just so weird. Like seeing speakers vibrate but not hearing any noise come out, whilst being able to hear everything else in the room just fine.
Weiss returned a few minutes later, dressed in her huntress gear. It was a thigh-length strapless white dress, with a faint pale cold-blue gradient at the hem, which was scalloped and stitched with snowflakes. She wore a bell-sleeved bolero coat over the dress, which faded from white to the same ice-blue at the puffy sleeves. It was lined with soft navy blue fabric which ruffled up at the neck, and had a snowflake crest on the back. Her legs were covered with high white silken stockings, and her feet... were those white high-heels? The hell? Those looked terrible to fight in. Around her waist was a large white bow-ribbon, tied at the front, holding a pouch around the back. Her long snow-white hair was tied back in an off-centre ponytail angled slightly to the right, with a silver icicle-styled tiara. That kept her hair back, away from her face, which was drawn intently. Her ice-blue eyes narrowed at the cage, as the vertical scar over her left eye was pulled taught. On her ears, her thin rectangular earrings shook, matching the silver apple-pendant around her neck, laid on the black lace ruffle just above her chest. She took a fencing stance, holding Myrtenaster's point in her left hand at the concealed cage.
"Yeah! Kill it! With fire!" Nora roared, pumping her fist over her ginger head.
"Be careful." Ren advised.
"Yeah, represent Teeeeam RWRN!" Ruby cheered enthusiastically.
At that last one, Weiss lowered her chrome rapier and glanced vexedly over at her leader. "Ruby! I'm trying to focus!"
"Oh, um... Sorry..." Ruby fizzled out sheepishly.
Why her? Ichigo picked up immediately on how Weiss had singled out Ruby specifically, when Nora was clearly the louder of the two. She was pissed at her leader, but why? Ah, that was just it. Her leader. She was annoyed that she wasn't the leader herself. And Ruby's behaviour in class hadn't convinced her any to the contrary. She must've been a stickler-for-the-rules-type. Ugh.
"Alright!" Port declared. "Let the match... begin!" He drew back the cloth over the cage, and in the same fluid motion, swung his bent-up pointing stick at the newly-revealed lock. Only it was clear now that it wasn't just a stick; two semicircle axe-blades had sprung out of the varnished wooden shaft. Looks like it was standard fare in this society for weapons to transform like some sort of mechanical shikai.
The cage's front immediately swung open, revealing a light-black-furred boar the size of an armchair. Like the colour of a very dusty sheet of black paper. It immediately charged at Weiss, as soon as all four of its glowing red eyes landed on her. A long tuft of darker-reddish hair, the colour of dried blood, trailed from its head down the length of its spine, to its long-haired tail. On its back and at the top of its legs, plates of white bone-like material, matching the osseous red-patterned mask comprising its face, protected it. Its hooves were also bone-white, as were the magnificent tusks that curled out thickly from its snapping mouth into wicked points. They were each larger than its head, from its sable snorting snout to its diamond-shaped pointed ears.
When it reached her, those very tusks clacked against her silver blade, but she pushed its head to the side with a flourish and rolled to the left, backing off. They circled each other, Weiss probing, the grimm already about to make its next strike.
"Haha! Wasn't expecting that, were you?" Port commented exuberantly.
"Hang in there, Weiss!" Ruby yelled. Her partner's pale blue eyes briefly fluttered in annoyance over to the stands, before she threw caution to the wind and charged head-on towards the oncoming boar. Ichigo was in support of this play. He could kill this thing without even a touch, but hypothetically, if he had to use a narrower blade like Weiss's, he'd try stabbing it in the eyes or down its throat. Running her point straight at its skull, she was thrown off as Myrtenaster failed to pierce the mask, and slid along the bone before getting locked in the beast's tusks. She'd missed the eyes. Or had she simply just tried to run it through, but lacked the strength? Weiss was still hanging on to the hilt tightly, and she was tossed about as she struggled to get the rapier back under her control.
"Bold, new approach. I like it!" Port remarked. Was he trying to sound so acridly patronising? Maybe he did deserve Ruby's drawing, after all.
"Uh-oh." Nora tittered, "Ren, you think..."
"You're right, Nora. This is an issue. It looks like Weiss has never fought a Boarbatusk before." Ren replied.
"A boar... batusk? Never fought one? So different grimm are found in different places?" Ichigo glanced to his right.
"Of course?" Ren sounded confused by Ichigo's apparently absurd question, and his eyebrows rose over his fuchsia irises. "Weiss is from Atlas, so she would have never even seen most Valean grimm before."
"Atlas? I thought that was an academy? Is she a transfer student?" Ichigo asked.
"Yes? It's also an entire kingdom." Ren clarified.
"How'd you even forget?" Ruby piped in.
"Oh, right. 'Course." Ichigo turned away quickly, facing back towards the fight.
Now that he knew, it was clear that whatever she was doing, Weiss had never encountered one of these types of grimm before. She was fighting as though she was trying to figure out what it was, and what it could do, testing its responses to her strikes, and it was working, at first. She was adapting, at least until-
"Come on, Weiss, show it who's boss!" Ruby cried, only to earn a withering glare from the girl she was cheering on. She quailed back, just as Weiss was distracted just enough to lose her grip as the Boarbatusk twisted its head to rip the sword from her. Myrtenaster flew off to the left, clattering along the smooth floor, firmly out of her reach. She'd been disarmed, but it looks like the match wasn't getting called yet.
"Oh ho! Now what will you do without your weapon?" Port asked. Ruby was about to shout out advice again, but Ichigo leaned over and spoke to her first.
"I think you should just let her fight." he crossed his arms and sat back in his seat.
"But Ren just said why I can't do that! She's never fought a Boarbatusk before." Ruby argued.
"Yes, he did, but that's exactly why this is a good thing, isn't it?" Ichigo returned.
"How?" Ruby shook her head at him.
"He's right." Ren chimed in. "This is a supervised lesson. Not as if the professor is about to let her die or anything."
"Exactly!" Nora chirped. "Plus, she seems really ticked off at you."
"...right, that too." Ren admitted.
"You noticed?" Ruby bemoaned. "Why is she so mad at me?"
"If she's losing her head in a fight over something out of her control, then she's the one who needs to fix herself here. I'm sure it'll work out fine. She'll probably bring it up herself." Ichigo reassured as he switched his attention back to the test. "If she can't beat it on her own, then that's on her. Besides, maybe you should've called out its weak spot earlier instead of just saying random cheerleader stuff. If you tried it now, she'd probably just yell at you and get hit again."
It was how every Captain Ichigo had met so far worked with their Lieutenants. They were mainly hands-off, though they did step in when things got bad. Mostly, the advice they'd give would be 'Don't do that or you'll die', then they'd leave them to it. Micromanaging a battle stifled the growth of the combatants, as it bred overthinking and the idea that there were 'rules' and 'guidelines' in a fight. Ichigo knew from experience, that there wasn't. If both people fighting wanted a fair duel, then they'd have one; if they were just trying to kill each other, then it'd get ugly. That was how it was. In a life-or-death situation, Ichigo would probably encourage Ruby to call out actual, valuable advice, but that wasn't necessary here. Weiss really needed to learn how to keep her cool, ironically enough.
"O-Okay..." Ruby shrank a little in embarrassment. "But you're right. She is in the wrong here! Why does she have such a big head?" she growled.
"That's not what I..." Ichigo trailed off. They'd sort it out themselves. It was just the first day.
The Boarbatusk leapt into the air, and curled into itself. Huh, Ichigo didn't expect a boar to be able to do that. It rolled into a wheel, more like a millipede than a hedgehog, and began spinning rapidly before it even touched the ground. It skidded forwards, and launched itself speedily at Weiss. She somersaulted to the side, dodging it narrowly head-over-heels, forcing it to take a wide route to line itself up for another shot at her. She used the time to sprint for her rapier, grabbing it off of the floor and regaining her posture right as the porcine grimm charged her again in its whirling form. Weiss waved Myrtenaster like a conductor's wand, drawing an ethereal blue-white encircled snowflake in its path.
"...A Schnee glyph." Someone behind Ichigo muttered in awe. Glyphs, so that was what they were called. But why her surname too?
It blocked the roll, leaving Weiss unobstructed as she waved her blade again and leapt up onto another, ghostly black snowflake glyph. Ichigo realised what he was sensing here; a strange ebb and flow of spiritual pressure. The snowflake itself, was Weiss manipulating her reiatsu, just as he'd sensed before in the forest. But now that he had a much closer look, he realised that the incandescent ring surrounding it, was flavoured by reishi. She was combining the two, somehow with various effects. This must've been her own type of what Amber referred to as a semblance. But how was she manipulating the reishi?
The boar squealed as it rolled and suddenly uncurled, pouncing at her. Weiss let out a yell as she crafted yet another glyph, only this snowflake-sigil was a pale, shimmering blue. An ice one, Ichigo recognised from initiation. A great spire of frost erupted from the circle, encasing the grimm until it was frozen solid. Weiss lunged down from her platform and speared deeply into the frigid ice in mid-air, finally piercing the Boarbatusk's hide now that she could choose where to stab at it. She drew out Myrtenaster, checking through the translucent crystalline berg she had created and scowled. It must've still been alive. So she stabbed it again. And again.
By the fourth time, she had had enough, so she held her blade horizontally, thrust it into of her pre-made holes, and she pulled the revolver's trigger in her chrome hilt.
A jet of crimson flames, white at the centre, roared from her blade, funnelled into core of the now rapidly-sublimating ice, unquestionably killing the Boarbatusk in a ridiculously spectacular fashion to a resounding ovation from the rest of the class.
"She killed it with fire! She killed it with fire! Just like I said to!" Nora squealed with glee.
"So cool..." Ruby uttered under her breath. Ichigo had to agree, it was pretty cool to watch, if not extremely overkill. But since when would he ever complain about that?
"Bravo! Splendid! Unbelievable! It appears we are indeed in the presence of a true huntress-in-training!" Port lowered his voice, for Weiss's ears only. "Although, as impressive as it was to witness, I must advise that you rely on less dust. You can't go around using up your entire supply on every grimm you meet, even if you are Miss Schnee. And do be mindful of the fire alarms next time, you almost set them off. It was extremely impressive dust control you've just displayed, though. I commend you for that."
"I'll... keep that in mind, professor." Weiss ground out through her teeth, breathing heavily as she gave a stiff curtsey to the applauding class. In truth, she would never normally have resorted to such... extreme measures over a single measly grimm, but she had been so infuriated by her fraudulent 'leader' that she'd just wanted to shut her up. Not a single word of actual value had left her lips, not once!
"I'm afraid that's all the time we have for today. Be sure to cover the assigned readings, and... stay vigilant! Class dismissed!" Professor Port declared. Weiss immediately stormed off, straight out the door.
"Well, that's a wrap!" Nora proclaimed, gathering her and Ren's shared stationery animatedly. Ren nodded along with her, and stood up just as Ichigo did. Ruby however, rushed out the door after Weiss as soon as she got up, pushing past Ichigo.
"That won't go well." Ichigo remarked dryly.
Ren sighed. "That's not even a question. At least they won't try and kill each other."
"You sure about that?" Ichigo raised a strawberry-blonde eyebrow at him.
"Mostly." Ren answered.
The grass under his feet was warm, even though his shoes. Ichigo was currently strolling through one of the multitude of green spaces of the castle grounds under an orange-tinged sky. It was pleasantly arranged and well-maintained, with autumnal-blooming flowers set in yellow-and-blue clusters around the edges, and a tree that still kept its golden-yellow leaves in the centre of the area. Middle-height, verdant hedges lined the sides of the garden, and they divided sections of it up as well. The flowers themselves were a duo of unrecognisable Remnant species, where the powder-blue ones were shaped like daffodils, and the bright yellow flowers were large-headed and bell-shaped. As he walked, he tried solidifying reishi in his palm unconsciously. It was a slow process, but he had the time.
After asking for directions earlier, he was making his way towards the library, to search for anything to do with the term 'relic'. He couldn't expect Ozpin to suddenly cave in, after all. If he was to suddenly just walk up to him and demand it, or even mention that he knew about something called a relic, the geezer would probably freak out and go postal; given how he'd reacted to Ichigo merely just calling him a wizard.
It was sunset now, and Ichigo had attended two more subjects over the course of the day. Mathematics wasn't really anything special, nor was it anything too tricky. Looks like there were a few constants between this plane of reality and his own, only the abbreviations and names of functions and formulas were slightly different. He was glad that he'd never have to take the subject again if he could, though. It was funny to think that this had likely been his last class ever for it, and it was in a foreign dimension. They couldn't just teach these huntsmen how to fight, after all. They had to receive a full education, although he could tell the 'conventional' subjects were less emphasised on in here.
The other one, however, was much more intriguing. Dust studies, was centred around something that he had no idea existed until he'd stepped through the door. He'd sensed the odd concentrations of spiritual matter in the engine of a bullhead, and from Weiss's weapon. He hadn't picked up on what it was, until that class, however. Dust was physical reishi. Crystallised into a form touchable by even those without spiritual pressure, it could be seen, interacted with and used by anyone. It was truly something to behold. He hadn't really been able to thoroughly understand every concept, given that the teacher had presumed prior knowledge of the stuff for even first years, but he'd gotten the gist of what it was, and what it could do. Since it was reishi, it could be mined indefinitely, because any deposits of the stuff would be self-replenishing, given a few decades or so.
This society didn't seem to know what reishi was, however, but dust apparently provided a way to awaken auras for people without any outside help. Given that it was concentrated reishi after all, it made sense that it would be able to force someone to gain reiatsu in the form of what they called aura. The strangest part of all was how there was different types of the stuff, which Ichigo could only somewhat understand after fighting the Wandenreich. The sternritters all had ways of imbibing reishi with their schrifts, creating spiritual thunderbolts or flames and the like. This must have been a similar, albeit much diluted, concept to that. His thoughts were interrupted when-
"...spoiled? Me? What the hell do you mean? You're the problem here, not me. You're the headmaster's pet." a familiar, cold tone of voice jabbed.
"I'm just trying to apologise! Something you should be doing too! I was right! Why are you being such a lousy-"
Ichigo turned around a leafy corner, stepping out from behind the hedge at a corner right as Ruby laid into Weiss. Damn, looks like she had some fire in her, after all. Her personality wasn't that different from her sister, after all. He'd heard the rabid catfight before he'd seen it, because even though the hedges weren't that tall, the quarreling girls weren't all that... tall, themselves.
Ichigo awkwardly met their frozen gazes, before holding up his hands placatingly and moving to squeeze past them. He had somewhere to be, after all. Something so mundane wasn't his business, either.
"Wait, don't go Ichigo! Back me up here! Ozpin himself told me it wasn't that bad. It's just the first day, for crying out loud!" Ruby held her hands aloft over her head in exasperation.
Weiss huffed, crossing her arms haughtily. "And I can already see the cracks forming. A bad foundation makes for a poor team. Are you seriously about to take her side, Ichigo?"
"As if you could do any better, you control freak!" Ruby interrupted.
"Of course I can! I can see now how the problem actually extends to far more than just the leadership here. The real issue here is you, plain and simple." Weiss rebutted.
"You take that back, you- Ouch!" Ruby grunted.
Ichigo hovered over them both, with his hands held out in an straight chop over both their heads, and a dull frown. It had felt strange to bonk some sense into them, what with the subtle forcefield of reiatsu cloaked around their craniums.
"I-I felt that through my aura? How is that even possible?" Weiss hunched over and rubbed at her head.
"Never mind that." Ichigo deflected annoyedly. "Explain what the issue is. Make it quick."
They looked at each other, before Weiss began hesitantly, "...After I left the classroom, Ruby chased after me. I took the opportunity to voice my concerns with her leadership."
"You viciously attacked me!" Ruby exclaimed.
"Wait, really?" Ichigo was taken aback.
"Well, um, verbally, I mean..." Ruby fidgeted and tugged at a lock of her red-tipped hair, nervously averting her silver eyes.
"See what I mean? She is positively unreliable. After class I saw the professor myself, and requested a change of leadership." Weiss disclosed without a hint of shame.
"Are you serious!?" Ruby shrieked.
"And then...?" Ichigo pressed.
"He denied me! Because 'of my attitude', he told me."
"No way. For that reason, really?" Ichigo asked flatly.
"Exactly!" Weiss didn't pick up even a hint of the sarcasm. "That, and he blindly believes the headmaster's decisions are infallible and never wrong, which is ridiculous!"
Ichigo considered how he was currently planning to break into Ozpin's secret headteacher vault as soon as Amber returned with its location, which was apparently where he'd been storing a half-dead girl in a coma for over a month. As well as how he was on the fence currently about beating him up for it afterwards, so who knew. "...Yeah, I can understand why you're mad about that."
"Hold on! But that's the opposite of what Ozpin said to me!" Ruby revealed. "He said that nobody on the planet has made as many mistakes as him!"
What choice words to encourage a student, Ichigo mused. It really felt as though Ozpin was throwing in a subtle hint about himself, there. Maybe he wasn't just being figurative? If he was a spiritual being, the literal wizard in the story, then he could have been thousands of years old easily. A few Squad Zero members, like presumably Ichibē, were over a million years old, and look at how young they all appeared to be.
"Exactly, he admitted it! You're the latest one of the lot!" Weiss snapped, jabbing a finger at her.
"Stop being so rude! Not once, not once since we've met have you been nice to me!" Ruby's voice wavered a tinge as she yelled at her partner.
Ichigo held up a hand for silence. He got it. "Alright already, I've heard enough. You both want to be the leader, right?"
At his question, they both nodded. Weiss firmly, Ruby slowly and much more shallowly.
"You both know there can only be one leader, right?" He affirmed.
Again, they both nodded. Weiss intently, Ruby faintly.
"Then why don't you just fight over it?" Ichigo held up a finger, marking his point. His single horn obscured the low sun behind himself, catching the warm afternoon light and making it appear to glow.
They both stared blankly at him, before answering in sync.
""Eeh?""
NEXT: 9 - UNFRIENDLY FIRE - [BL_86] / [BL_82]
Author notes:
A more vanilla chapter, storywise, but you can still see the slight changes to the plot here. Ruby and Weiss had their usual argument after the first class, both of them went to speak to the respective teachers. But since Weiss hasn't saved Ruby at initiation, neither of them have really said a single kind thing to each other since they've met. So as soon as they try and talk again, it devolves into a shouting match, which Ichigo is unwillingly dragged into. As a Bleach character, he's about to apply battle-shounen logic to this, which might not work as well on Remnant. As in, at all. Never said he'd be a 100% positive influence on the world here, though...
Other than that, what happened to Amber is quite different here. Read that part closely, about the people specifically, and you might realise what's up. Importantly, I made sure she wasn't too clued in on the whole maiden/relic thing. She only knows of the existence of one of them, and doesn't even know about the witch. Qrow did say she was 'inexperienced', and I have no idea what she was doing in the middle of nowhere riding a horse, so I came up with this. Ichigo is tempted to just rush back in and demand answers from Ozpin, but he's waiting for Amber to tell him about her body's location, first. That final fight with Yhwach, where he looks back over his shoulder at Orihime calmly even as Yhwach is taunting him about his dead mother, convinced me that Ichigo isn't a 'hothead' by the end of the series. He's able to think things through now, but he still has an impulsive streak.
The fight this chapter is just background noise, mainly, so I didn't try to make it stand out too much. It did end differently, because Weiss didn't know the Boarbatusk's weak spot. I considered it, but in the end decided that there was no way she'd lose to one single grimm like that. The next one, though... that's gonna be the focus.
About Ruby's personality here, she's usually portrayed as a cupcake with legs by other writers on this site. However, if you reread her dialogue, you'll notice that she can get quite rude when she wants to. Which isn't very often at all, but I'm pretty sure this is one of those times. She'll calm down... just not next chapter.
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